Pages

Thursday, March 5, 2015

My sweet sweet girl at 3 years

This post has been written for the past two weeks (her birthday was on the 16th), but I just couldn't find a good morning to take our update photo. We rushed to take it this morning before running to the store -- and of course, my girl looks gorgeous in her sweats.

In looking back over the year, I realized that I never did a two-year update or even a two-&-a-half-year update for this girl. I know that in looking through the videos and the photos that I can still relive that time, but I really regret not taking a snapshot of the things that videos and photos don't show. Of course, I'm cutting myself some slack as I had a two-week old to deal with (and her) at her two-year update, but still heartbroken that I didn't write it down.

---Finn weighed in at 31.5 pounds and was 36.5 inches tall at her 3 year check up this week. She is only in the 40th percentile for height and the 58th percentile for her weight.
---She is in size 3T clothes. Although some of her jeans are getting a little snug, they have the elastic waist band adjustable buttons on the inside. I have let some of the buttons out in hopes of keeping the jeans in rotation for a little longer. Everything else fits wonderfully.

---We have entered into the "no-food-for-me-but-chicken-nuggets-french-fries-&-fruit-snacks" zone. I will happily admit that the girl loves her protein. She will eat chicken, pork, some fish, sandwich meat and steak. She isn't into ground beef at this point (and she never has been). She loves cheese and yogurt. But she is now refusing foods that she used to love as a baby, such as sweet potatoes, bananas, oranges, carrots -- basically all fruits and vegetables. On a good day, I can get her to eat some mashed potatoes. I'm hopeful this phase will pass FAST. I'm told this is completely normal and I refuse to be a short-order cook, so there are days and nights where she doesn't really eat much. I am constantly asking her to try the foods that are on our plates for dinner -- foods that Fish is eating, that I'm eating -- but at this point, her lips are sealed.
---She is a very eloquent speaker for a three-year-old. She knows how to use some pretty big words. But it's funny to hear her trying and repeat a word that she heard either E or I use and she says it wrong. Some of the most recent are "constructions" for "instructions" and "ca-mote" or "remote". She also likes to add the word "verily", such as "I'm not hungry verily". Some of the cutest things that she says lately -- "Let's make a compromise (or deal)." "Can I ask you a question?" "I'm mad!" (which we are trying to get her to say instead of screaming at the top of her lungs)

---She is not a sleeper. But she has never been a sleeper, even when she was a wee one. We start our bedtime process between 7:45 - 8:15. It's not really a lengthy process. Bath some nights (then we start at 7:30), jammies, calcium pills, picking and reading four books, then lights out. But even when lights are out at 8:30, she doesn't fall asleep until 9:15-9:30. She still falls asleep in our bed and then gets moved over to her room. We are currently in discussions about her going to sleep in her room at the beginning of the night. She isn't a big middle-of-the-night-waker anymore, but girlfriend is up by 7:00am. And it doesn't matter what time she goes to bed, she is always up at between 7:00-7:30. And naps are definitely NOT her favorite. But 9 times out of 10, I can get her to take a nap (the days that she doesn't are especially hard on all of us because she still needs her naps). And she usually naps between 90 minutes to two hours some days.
---And just this week, we have moved over to nighttime undies (I bought the training undies that have the padding in them). She has been in diapers at night this whole time and hasn't peed in them for at least 3 weeks & always would wake up and tell E that she needs to use the bathroom. Well, she has been in the undies since the weekend and we had our first official accident -- weird thing was she didn't even know in the morning that she had done it. Maybe she isn't ready for nighttime undies yet.
---Finn has the memory of an elephant! She amazes me the things that she remembers, whether it be from a conversation I had with E a week or so ago or something that has happened in the past. She will remember things that have happened almost a year ago, which I'm astounded by. One of the things that she always remembers and brings up is our old dog who "went to Kelly's house" (E had a dog before we moved to Ohio that passed away, but we still had photos of her up in the house. And when Bishop passed away, we thought it easiest to tell Finn that she went to Kelly's house which was a far ways away) two weeks after Fish was born, Bishop. There is a lot of "Bishop used to lay here all the time." or "Bishop used to do..." or "We have two dogs! Bishop and Munk!"

---Her current favorites are watching videos on Youtube -- especially videos of people opening Easter eggs or toys and dogs hunting Easter eggs. She also loves to dance like a ballerina and twirl until her skirt swirls out. She loves to do 'nastics class (gymnastics) with the pillows on the couches piled on the floor. She absolutely LOVES reading books -- we read two books before nap time and four each night. So each day, she gets at least six books and would read ten times that number if I would sit with her that long. She also loves anything Frozen (of course, what little girl doesn't).